What Did The Starving Artist Do When Sales Dried Up?

GLASTONBURY — Jacob Pongratz was in so much pain the week before Pongratz Fine Art had its first opening reception, he couldn't sleep.

Pongratz, 35, attended his crowded reception in dark sunglasses and a black back brace, the kind that warehouse and big box store workers sometimes wear. He said the glasses were camouflaging his bloodshot eyes.

It was a rare moment of weakness by a man so determined to keep his art gallery alive that he chose White Whale as the theme of its opening exhibition. This gallery is his own Moby Dick obsession.

"It's a symbol of me … trying to beat the odds," he said. "Single mindedness."

Pongratz, who paints brightly colored geometric abstractionist canvases, was humbled after his divorce a little more than a year ago. He had worked exclusively as a painter — his best year he earned $23,000. But after he moved from New Haven to Portland, painting had to be supplemented by selling house paint at Lowe's. Which is how he came to hurt so much.

Late last summer, he decided to turn to Kickstarter to fund this gallery. With the help of about 45 friends and relatives and a couple of strangers, he slightly exceeded his goal of $20,000. He thought that would be enough to get him through a year of startup costs and rent, before the gallery built up enough sales momentum to break even.

He got access to his charming 1,200-square-foot space in Glen Lochen Center a little more than three months ago, and he used up his crowd-sourced nest egg by February.

"It still wasn't enough," he said. "Thank God for People's United Bank."

Pongratz said People's Bank granted him a $20,000 line of credit.

Where did all the money go? Well, there was a $4,000 security deposit, $1,600 a month in rent, $10,000 to hire a public relations firm, the cost of a website, a computer, a printer, a credit card machine. "Paint is not cheap, even with my 10 percent discount," he said.

He doesn't pay anyone for the 21 hours a week he's open — his family helps him gallery-sit if he's scheduled to work at Lowes that afternoon.

The gallery has paintings, prints, pastels, sculpture and multimedia work for sale, with prices between $200 and $7,000, but most in the $800 to $1,200 range.

When first asked how many pieces he'd have to sell a month to cover his costs, he said one to two, forgetting that the artists get half the sales price. So really, it's three to four sales.

His ultimate goal would be to earn half his income from the gallery, and half from selling his art.

How much would Pongratz have to sell in a year to reach that goal? He first estimated $32,000 worth of art, but when you back out the artists' commissions on that revenue figure, it wouldn't even be enough to cover the full year's rent.

He acknowledged that he's going to need to work at Lowe's for years to make enough money to live, and all the work he does for the gallery will be unpaid for quite a while.

Glen Lochen is under heavy renovations, and on some weekend days, not a single person dropped in. Just after Pongratz ponders if he should have negotiated a lower rent during construction, he exclaims, "I'm not a business person, I'm an artist, dammit!"

He said an artist trying to be a businessman is an experience of two worlds colliding. "There's something strange about it."

He may not be a businessman, but he's an artist with organizational skills. His grand opening March 14 had more than 100 people crowded in the gallery and spilling out into the food court and hallway during its first hour.

"We're very interested in abstract art. It's very hard to find it in Connecticut in general," said Joan Shapiro, who attended the opening with her fiance, Paul St. Onge.

The couple, who live in South Windsor, were particularly happy Pongratz is launching at the distinctive, but seen-better-days Glen Lochen mall. "This architecture is fabulous. This area needs this kind of stuff, avant-garde," she said.

Shapiro was more browsing than shopping — she and St. Onge are artists themselves, and between their own work and pieces they've bought over the years, their walls are pretty full.

Anne Bjorkland, who was standing nearby, had six paintings in the show. Pongratz discovered her in another shop in the mall. She's been painting six years. "I paint for love, so if nothing sells, that's not a problem," she said.

Pongratz said that so far, as a result of the opening reception, there were two sales totaling $1,560. Backing out the sales tax and artists' commission share, that netted about $725 to the gallery. He spent about $300 on food for the event, and $2,000 on champagne, though there was plenty of the bubbly left over.

What happens if sales aren't enough to cover expenses for the rest of the year, and he exhausts the line of credit?

"I am not going to let this place shut down," Pongratz said. "I'll figure something out. This is Captain Ahab."

It seems cruel to point out that Captain Ahab drowned after he got caught in the harpoon line as he tried to kill his nemesis.

Pongratz laughed, saying he does know that he's comparing myself to a man who died for his obsession.

"We all do [die]. At least I'm doing something that I love."

Pongratz Fine Art is open from Friday through Sunday from 1 to 8 p.m. in the Glen Lochen mall at 39 New London Turnpike, Glastonbury. Email: info@pongratzfineart.com